After watching Ryu
win the first World Warrior tournament, Sakura became his #1 fan. She started
street fighting (and mimicking Ryu's fighting style) during the events of Rival
Schools. She has a friend named Kei Chitose who attends the same high school
and sometimes travels with Sakura when she fights. She also has a brother named
Tsukushi.

Later in SFA2, she started searching for Ryu in an effort to become his
student. She ran into a variety of fighters along the way, defeating some, and
eventually caught up to Ryu. At this time, Ryu was confused over the Satsui no
Hadou that had consumed him recently. He told Sakura that he could not train her
because he still had much to learn himself. The two sparred for a while, and Ryu
let her win. Sakura took a picture of Ryu to remember him by.

During the events of SFA3, Sakura decided to travel the world to find Ryu
again. After fighting E.
Honda in Japan, he informed her that Ryu was traveling to India and
Thailand. Later in her travels, she had a rematch with her rival Karin
Kanzuki. Karin won, but admitted Sakura was better and learned that winning
is not everything. Sakura also met Dan
Hibiki, who became her self-proclaimed sensei after she realized that he had
some information about Ryu. After using Dan to get the info she needed, she set
out to find Ken Masters. After Ken and
Sakura became acquainted, they traveled to Thailand in search of Ryu and found
that he was being brainwashed by M.
Bison. Ryu and Sagat began fighting, and at the
same time, Ken and Sakura took on Bison. Thanks to Sakura screaming at Ryu (and
Sagat's previous words), Ryu was able to snap out of bison's mind control and
defeat him. Later, he told Sakura he wasn't ready for a rematch yet, and walked
away.

In the Street Fighter 4 timeline, Sakura's obsession with Ryu continued,
but it seems to have grown into crush. After the second World Warrior
tournament, she confronted Dan, asking him if he knows Ryu's location. Dan, not
wanting to appear out of the loop, told her that Ken will be participating,
which means Ryu should be there. Sakura was ecstatic and immediately entered the
tournament. She, Dan and Blanka departed
on a cruise ship where she endures an intense self-imposed training regime.
During the tournament, eventually found Ryu in the S.I.N. building. While the
building was being destroyed, Ryu and Sakura escaped together, and ran into Dan
and Blanka along the way. After the tournament, she and Ryu exchange goodbyes
and Sakura left for home. Some time later, while out walking her dog, a slightly
older-looking Sakura sees Ryu approaching. It is not known what happens
afterwards.

Sakura was Capcom's
original "schoolgirl" design, and I'm pretty sure she was the first schoolgirl to ever appear in a fighting game.
Indeed, many fighting game schoolgirls followed in her
footsteps. Sakura made a pretty big impact in the fighting
game genre when she debuted in SFA2, and soon became a fan favorite Street
Fighter character. She's what you call an instant classic. ;)

Even though
I'm not usually a fan of girls with short hair, it suits Sakura... her being a
tomboy and all. Her moves are of course inspired by Ryu's, which is cool from
the start... even though
she looses a few originality points. However, it's definitely entertaining to see "her take" on
moves like the Hadoken and Shoryuken. I was expecting her to appear a bit
older in SF4, and maybe even wear some new threads... but even though she
was the same old (young) Sakura, I wasn't
disappointed with her SF4 appearance. ;)